As I have mentioned before, I subscribe to numerous Website Newsletters, one of which is Women in Green. Some weeks ago I received two newsletters, one containing a letter written by Ruth Matar, and the other, an article by Caroline Glick. Whilst the two articles had different purposes, it was interesting to note the intersection point of the two. Today I want to provide you with excerpts from both, for they relate to the current Middle Eastern Conflict, Terrorism, and the prestige of the United States of America.

The first article, entitled: "Are Jews Allowed to Avenge the Death of their Brethren?", written by Ruth Matar and published January 5th 2006, was essentially about Steven Spielberg's new movie, 'Munich'. M/s Matar expresses her opinion that "The disturbing aspect of Spielberg's take on MUNICH, is that he tries to prove the moral equivalence of the Arab terrorists killing innocent athletes, and the Mossad avenging their death". As I have never seen the Movie, I simply cannot comment on the accuracy of this perception.

However, the most important statement she makes in the article is that the key figures responsible for the murders of the Israeli athletes were Muhammad Daoud Oudeh (Abu Daoud) and Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). Standing on its' own, this statement does not seem particularly noteworthy. When you continue reading however, the relevance has impact, for she states: "The current Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), provided the funds for the murder of the Israeli athletes, and American citizen David Berger. That sincere, trustworthy, moderate Arab gentleman, so admired by the Condoleezza Rice and the U.S. State Department, and feted by President George W. Bush at the White House, was the official paymaster of MUNICH!"

In essence, M/s Matar's article attacks what she sees as Steven Spielberg's attempt "to prove that Israel is not the expression of Jewish values, but the contradiction of them", and after providing Scriptural support for her viewpoint (Exodus Chapter 21:12-14), concludes by saying that "When the Jews took revenge for the MUNICH murders of their brethren, they obeyed the Jewish Social Laws on "murder and manslaughter" as set forth in the Judeo-Christian Bible!".

To summarise the points made in that letter:

• A terrorist killed innocent people
• The terrorist is now feted by the West
• That terrorist should have been put to death.

In the second article entitled "Israel's North Korean media" by Caroline Glick, her subject was 'media distortion', and was primarily directed at the Israeli media attention given to Ariel Sharon after his first hospitalisation. With no other apparent intent, she introduced some examples from the Western Media in relation to the Iraq war, as a basis for what she was to say about Ariel Sharon.  In the light of the first article mentioned above, her statements are interesting.

M/s Glick relates that "To combat the media campaign being waged against the war [in Iraq], the US military is taking measures to bypass the mainstream media and get news of the US forces' victories on the ground in Iraq to the attention of the general public. Public affairs officers in the Marine Corps for instance, have begun sending out press briefings to prominent military weblogs and to veterans associations ... the Post's puerile reaction to the Marine's attempt to bypass their editorial chopping block shows that the mainstream media is concerned that their uniform animosity to the war may actually harm their credibility. Finally, the Marines' willingness to turn to bloggers shows that at least in the US, the Internet revolution is weakening the mainstream media's control over information".

In that portion of the article devoted to the Iraq war she reports that in an essay in "Commentary Magazine' entitled "The Panic over Iraq," Norman Podhoretz makes the case that in its biased, distorted coverage of the American-led campaign in Iraq, the Western media, or what in the US is referred to as the "mainstream media," is doing its best to ensure that America and its allies are defeated in a war that they are winning".

She relates that the author of that articles sees the media as desperately trying to "portray Iraq as another Vietnam" and from this it is seen that "a victory in Iraq, and against the global jihad overall, will sound the death knell for the Vietnam syndrome. That syndrome, which has been internalized and espoused as a writ of faith by the mainstream media for almost 40 years, dictates that the US and its allies can only be viewed as moral powers if they renounce war even when it is being waged against them by forces bent on their destruction".

This final sentence then, is the intersecting point in the two articles. The observation, made without any reference to psychology, has nevertheless profound psychological significance. The key point of both articles, is that in order to be, appear or remain 'righteous', one is obligated not to do anything to defend themselves against attack.

To give example of this in common life, if a criminal breaks into your home and you try to defend yourself, it is you who will be scrutinised and possibly charge with assault or worse. Righteousness, has been redefined in the modern world to mean, passivity or even martyrdom.  Unless one remains passive or inactive, or plays the role of a martyr, then they cannot be perceived as righteous.

We can thank the Civil Libertarians for this approach. When police pursue criminals in a car chase, they are vilified in the press as 'endangering lives'. When a criminal is killed in an ensuing accident, it is the police who are responsible. We are being raised in a world that not only permits lawlessness, but approves of it, even if the average "joe blow" fails to see their pursuit of 'human rights' as contributing to that lawlessness. General sexual permissiveness and the right to view sexually explicit material, led last week to an 8 year old boy being apprehended over the rape of a three year old girl. I could write a whole article about that story, but it is not the focus of this article.

Needless to say, the social engineers have seen to it, that the general populace is 'guilt tripped' into passivity, even if it requires a circuitous route through "social activism" to get there. It is nonetheless designed to impose a concept of 'passive morality'.

Both the USA and Israel, are 'tagged' as unrighteous in their activities in the Middle East, because of 'their' acts of aggression. It makes no difference if they are defending themselves, or protecting others. To show aggression is unrighteous. So why are terrorists not unrighteous? The answer to that lies in the 'bleeding hearts' mentality. Irrationally aggressive people are 'victims' of someone or something, and so deserve our understanding and compassion.

I personally predict that when China finally attacks Taiwan, the social experimenters will justify the action, as something predictable, the fault for which will lay at the doorstep of the Taiwan government because it failed to pay attention to the warnings it was given. In the meantime, the same 'social justice' crowd will continue to fight for the rights of the average Chinese "joe blow" who is suffering injustice at the hands of the oppressor. That too is another story.

Irrespective of what the social engineers, the bleeding hearts, or the civil libertarians do or say, in the final analysis, it is the power of the press, the Western Media, that plays the greatest role in shaping the minds of citizens. It is the press that chooses a side to take, and takes it with a vengeance.

The difference between the groups mentioned, and the Media, is that however right or wrong those groups may be, their activities originally derive from 'conscience'. The media has no conscience. It has only one motivation - $'s $'s $'s.

Good news never travels or sells as well as bad news, and so today, while the righteous indignation of the Media wants to sell us a story about the unrighteous war in Iraq, tomorrow it will be be just as happy to sell us a story about our unrighteousness if we left the Iraqis at the mercy of murderous autocrats, who, up until that story hits the streets, were considered righteous and valiant 'freedom fighters'.

Caroline Glick wrote: One day, years from now, after the war to defeat the global jihad has been won, historians will proclaim that the years of this war marked the darkest period in the history of Western journalism.

My opinion would be that if the Media have their way, One Day, years from now, after the war to defeat the global jihad has been lost, historians will proclaim that the years of this war marked the darkest period in the history of western journalism.

"Tell me Oh Man what is good?, and What does the Lord require of thee? But to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly, with thy God".

R.P.BenDedek
Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com

The King's Calendar' is a synchronous chronological presentation of the history of Ancient Israel, as principally recorded in the Biblical books of Kings and Chronicles, and sets forth Apologetics for and the results of R.P.BenDedek's discovery of an "artificial chronological scheme" running through the Books of the Bible, Josephus,the Damascus Documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Seder Olam Rabbah. www.kingscalendar.com

Photographic Stories from China can be found at:  http://www.kingscalendar.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id=128